The Deaves Affair

"Florist."

Evan blushed.

On his way down-stairs Evan tapped on her door with beating heart. There was no answer. With a sigh he went on. Carmen, who missed little, had heard him stop and coming out, volunteered the information that Miss Playfair had gone out real early. Evan thanked her, and hurried on, dreading to face the sharp-eyed spinster.

All morning he walked the streets with Simeon Deaves in a dream. In the middle of the day he made an excuse to avoid luncheon at the Deaves' and rushed home, stopping en route to buy a small-sized cartwheel of violets.

He let himself in softly and managed to get on the stairs without attracting Carmen's attention. The violets were hidden under his coat. Corinna's door stood open now, and his heart began to beat. "Will she recognise my step?" he thought. "I would know hers on my flight."

He stood in her doorway and the heart slowly froze in his breast. The room was empty, dreadfully empty. She was gone. The empty mantel, the empty floor, the empty place where the piano had stood seemed to mock at him. He turned a little sick, and put his hand out behind him on the door frame for support. "There is some mistake," he told himself, but he knew in his heart there was no mistake. This was the natural outcome of the tormenting mystery in which Corinna enveloped herself.

He looked stupidly down at the violets in his hand. In a spasm of pain he threw them on the floor and ground them under his heel. Their fragrance filled the room. Then the violence passed and he felt dead inside. He looked inside the little dressing-room – not that he expected to find her there, but it was a place to look. It was empty of course.

When he issued out again the sight of the bruised flowers caused him a fresh wrench. Lying there they were like a public advertisement of his betrayed heart. He picked them up and thrust them as far as he could reach up the chimney flue.

In the midst of Evan's pain a voice seemed to whisper to him: "You might have expected it. It was too much happiness!"

Later he thought: "There will be a letter for me up-stairs," and ran up the two flights, knowing there would be no letter. Yet he searched even in the unlikeliest places. There was no letter. To his relief Charley was out.

He thought of Carmen. Dreadful as it was to face her prying eyes, it was still more dreadful not to know what had happened. He went down-stairs again. On the final flight the unhappy wretch started to whistle, hoping by that to attract her to her door that he might not have to ask for information.

The ruse was successful. She came out into the hall. Evan found himself curiously studying the odd bumps that the curling pins made under her frowsy boudoir cap. She required no lead to make her talk.

"Miss Playfair has gone!" she cried.

"So I see," said Evan. He listened carefully to the sound of his own voice. It did not shake. He kept his back to the light from the front door.

"What do you know about that! I never did like her. One of them flibbertigibbets! You never can trust a red-haired woman! And such a display of her hair, as if it was beautiful indeed! That showed her character. But I should worry! Paid me a month's rent in advance when she came. Wanted part of it back this morning. But I said, 'Oh, no, my dear! That's the landlady's propensity – I mean perquisite.'"

Evan wondered if the sick disgust he felt of the woman showed in his face. As a matter of fact his face was simply wooden. Carmen rattled on unsuspiciously:

"That's enough for me. I don't care if I never rent the rooms. No more women in my house. They lower the tone. A man of course can do anything and it doesn't matter, but a woman in the house is a cause for suspicion even if she doesn't do anything."

Evan was not interested in Miss Sisson's ideas. He wanted information. "What reason did she give for leaving?" he asked carelessly.

"Said she had an important musical offer from out of town. But do you believe that? I don't."

"She didn't lose much time in moving her things," suggested Evan.

"No indeed. Looks very suspicious if you ask me."

Evan was obliged to put his question in more direct form. "Who moved her things?"

"Just an ordinary truck without any name on it. I looked particularly. The piano people came for the piano. Rented. It was a Stannering."

Fearing that the next question could not but betray him, Evan was nevertheless obliged to ask it: "Did she leave any forwarding address?"

Miss Sisson's gimlet eyes bored him through before she replied. "Yes, I asked her. She said she didn't expect anything to come here, but if it did I could forward it care of her friend Miss Evans, 133 West Ninth street. Did she owe you any money?"

This was too much. "No, indeed," said Evan, and hurried away.

He walked blindly across the Square, conscious only that Carmen was probably watching him through the narrow pane beside the door. How well he knew her expression of mean inquisitiveness. He was marching into blackness. He was incapable of thinking consecutively. What was left of his faculties was concentrated to the sole end of concealing his hurt.

But he still had two clues. He automatically turned down Ninth street looking for 133 only to find what everybody knows that West Ninth street ends at Sixth avenue and there are consequently no numbers beyond 100. He went to the Stannering piano warerooms to ask if they had the new address of Miss Corinna Playfair on their books. He was told that Miss Playfair had returned her piano that morning saying that she was leaving town and would require it no longer.

CHAPTER X

MAUD'S INTEREST

Meanwhile Evan's association with Simeon Deaves was not without its humorous side. By the exercise of patience and diplomacy he gradually learned how to manage the old man like a child, though like a child there were times when he was perfectly unmanageable. Evan in a way became quite attached to him simply because he was a responsibility.

Avarice was a kind of disease that afflicted him. Apart from that he was a harmless, even a likable old fellow. He suffered from acute attacks, so to speak: these were his unmanageable times. He became sly and furtive, and sought for pretexts to sneak out of the house without Evan, or to give him the slip in the street. Evan had to watch sharp to keep him out of trouble. He had little doubt but that they were generally followed, but by more experienced trackers than the youth in grey for he could never be sure of it.

Simeon Deaves had a thousand foibles, some of which Evan found sadly trying. For instance it was his delight to walk up and down the aisles of department stores asking to be shown goods, and haggling over the price without the slightest intention of purchasing anything. The audible remarks of the salesgirls made Evan's cheeks burn.

When he remonstrated with the old man, the latter would not rest thereafter until he had given Evan the slip. Under cover of the crowds he would slip out of a side door, or dart into an elevator just as the door was closing. After a search Evan would find him perhaps entering a second-hand shop to trade the decent clothes that Maud made him wear for something out of stock with a little cash to boot. At other times Evan would track him by the crowd that gathered to hear his argument with a shoe-string peddler or a push-cart man. A favourite trick of his to evade Evan was to suddenly dart behind a moving trolley car. More than once this almost ended his career on the spot. At other times he was quite tractable and seemed almost fond of Evan.

Bargaining was his ruling passion. Consequently they haunted such places as the sidewalk market in Grand street, and the fish market under the Queensboro Bridge. Notwithstanding his avarice the old man not seldom bought things for which he had no possible use, simply because he thought they were cheap. He would bring home a doubtful fish in a bit of newspaper or a bag of pickled apples which promptly found their way into the Deaves' garbage cans.

His pet aversion was beggars. Woe to the beggar who tackled Simeon Deaves unwittingly. He would receive a lecture on Thrift on the spot. This likewise furnished amusement to the street crowds.

Evan's grand object, of course, was to keep the old man from doing anything which would give the blackmailers a further hold on him. One of his narrowest escapes took place under the very roof of the Deaves house. The old man was considered safe in his own little junk room in the basement, and was allowed to potter there unwatched. One rainy morning while he was supposedly so engaged Evan was enjoying a respite with a book in the little office adjoining the library, when through the open door into the hall he saw one of the maids whisper to another, then both tittered and scampered down stairs. Evan always on the alert for mischief, quietly followed.

He found most of the servants of that disorderly establishment gathered in a basement passage with heads bent, listening to sounds that issued through the door of Simeon Deaves' room. Among them was Hilton the butler, an oily, obese rascal whom Evan thoroughly distrusted. All vanished the other way down the passage at Evan's approach.

Evan knocked peremptorily, and the door being opened, he saw that the multi-millionaire was closeted with a typical specimen of old clo' man, bearded, dirty and cringing. It was their dispute over sundry articles in Simeon Deaves' weird collection that had drawn the giggling servants. It appeared that the old man was the seller. Evan bounced the old clo' man in spite of his protests.

"I come by appoindmend, mister. I come by appoindmend!"

"All right" said Evan. "Call it a disappoindmend, and get!"

The old man was indignant too. "A very honest man," he protested. "He was willing to pay me twenty-five cents for my alarm clock. I could have got him up to thirty. It isn't worth more than fifteen!"

"You can be sure then that he was taking a chance of picking up something for nothing," said Evan. "When will you learn sense! All the servants listening and giggling in the passage. Nice story the alarm clock would make in the papers!"

But it was impossible to make the old man realize his own absurdity. "Well, you needn't bite my head off," he said pettishly. "Come on, let's go out. A little rain won't hurt us."

From which it will be seen that their relative positions had undergone a considerable change since the beginning. Evan had become the mentor and guide.

In the past the demands for money had come pretty regularly about once a fortnight, Evan learned. As the end of the two weeks drew near a certain apprehension was evident in the house. George Deaves was wretchedly anxious, Evan somewhat less so, while the old man went his ways undisturbed.

And then the letter came. One morning on his arrival Evan was directed to the library where he found George Deaves in a state of prostration. He waved a letter at Evan in a kind of weak indignation. Evan took it and read:

"Dear Mr. Deaves:

Another story has been written to add to the blithe biography of your parent. It is the most humorous chapter so far. We do not enclose it, as we desire to stimulate your curiosity. You can read it in the Clarion to-morrow evening – unless you wish to reserve that pleasure exclusively to yourself. In that case you may send a picture to the rummage sale of the Red Cross at – Fifth avenue. Mrs. Follett Drayton is in charge. Send any framed picture and between the picture and the backing insert five of Uncle Sam's promissory notes of the usual denomination. Put your name on the picture for purposes of identification.

Yours as ever,